


Fallen King

by Raynebowe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4869662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynebowe/pseuds/Raynebowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The bells were ringing, singing the fanfare for a king on his funeral day.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fallen King

**Author's Note:**

> My first story posted on AO3! Something I wrote a few years ago for a 500 word story competition. I changed it slightly - only one or two words.
> 
> Enjoy! ^-^

♕♚♕

The bells were ringing, singing the fanfare for a king on his funeral day. The drums were rolling out a steady beat, the march of the soldiers reaching it's end.  
I shuffled along the cobblestone road, surrounded by hundreds of people. They all hated me, each and every one of them. I didn't know why. I didn't know a lot of things.  
I heard a shout and turned my head. Someone threw a rock at me. It hit me hard on the cheek, bruising me. The crowd cheered and I stared at them, blankly. They threw more rocks and it hurt but I didn't care. One hit my crown, knocking it to an angle. A soldier near me told them to stop - they wouldn't want his highness to look anything but his best now would they? The crowd jeered. They did stop throwing rocks though.  
The world was hazy, noises dulled and light dimmed. The numbness that had been my life for a while now stayed with me, my only companion in a sea of black, white and gray. Nothing mattered. I couldn't remember what came before this and I didn't care to know what would come after.  
The procession kept going for a few more minutes. The guards, my escort, moved in perfect synchronization, their feet slamming to the ground as the drums sang. The crowd started to clap in time with them too.  
We reached the palace. I looked up at its tall columns and arching windows. It looked so majestic, so powerful. I was like that once, I thought. Then I wasn't so sure. Was I ever anything except this?  
We stopped moving and the drums stopped drumming. The bells kept going though. I was pushed roughly up the steps to the specially built platform. I looked at the rope, at the knot, at the noose that would soon be around my neck. For a brief moment I felt a detached sense of fear but it quickly disappeared.  
I was vaguely aware of a person standing next to me. They were saying something but I didn't know what. It was just a noise, a sound without meaning. They stopped talking.  
Someone tore off my crown, my robe and my shirt. They whipped me, ripping my skin and causing blood to dribble down my back. It dripped onto the floor. People were laughing, the kingdom was laughing. Those who weren't laughing were turned away, afraid to look.

I nearly wondered why.

They shoved me forwards and slipped the noose over my head and around my neck. I looked out over the crowd, emotionless. They tightened the knot and slid it up, under my chin. There was silence, the only sound was that of the far-off bells.

The floor fell out from underneath me and the rope tightened around my neck. I couldn't breathe, I didn't try to.

A breeze caressed my face.

*

The bells were ringing, singing the fanfare for a king on his funeral day.

What king?

♕♚♕


	2. The Fall of the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events leading up to Fallen King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> StarlightInHerEyes22 asked to know how the king ended up being executed, so here it is.  
> I'm calling the unnamed king in the story 'A' to make this easier to understand. B is A's second cousin once removed.

♕♚♕

A's father, who was king before him, died when he was at a very young age. A was crowned king almost immediately and, as both A and his father had been only children and his grandfather's sister had died childless, there was no immediate family to take care of the kingdom for him until he was old enough to do so himself. Instead, his father's ministers did it for him. There was one minister who wasn't entirely trustworthy. He was actually A's second cousin once removed (A's great-grandfather's brother's second daughter's son) so he believed he had a right to the throne (he didn't).  
Before A's father's death, B had a plan to claim the throne. He'd planned to come to the palace as a minister and spend several years working his way up until he became the king's closest and most trusted adviser. After he'd done this, he'd poison the queen - gradually so that it seemed like illness rather than poison. (He'd do this before she had a child so he wouldn't have any competition. He knew that if an heir was born he'd have no chance of gaining the throne.) She'd die, then the king would fall in to mourning. He would then start poisoning the king the same way he did the queen. It wouldn't seem suspicious - he could just say that the death of the queen had weakened him, both physically and mentally as the king loved the queen a lot. As the king's illness got worse B would remind him of the fact that they were family - second cousins. He'd subtly remind him of the need for an heir. He'd make it seem like it was the king's idea that he was named next in line for the throne.  
There was a problem, however. Before he could get close enough to the king for the plan to work, the queen became pregnant. He couldn't just kill the queen because he knew that the king would be crippled with grief. He wouldn't be able to get any closer to him when he was like that and, if the king recovered, there was always a chance that he would remarry and have another child. B decided to let the queen have the child, then he'd deal with both her and the child later on when he was close enough to the king.  
But then- another problem happened. The queen died in childbirth. This caused the king to fall into mourning. He became ill - just as B's original plan had been except it happened without B's help and far too early for his plan to work. The king died and B realised that he'd have to completely discard his old plan, so he came up with a new one.  
B's new plan was this - he'd allow the other ministers to run the kingdom while the child (who was A) was growing up. He instead would focus on becoming very close to A, like family - possibly as a father figure or an uncle. He would be the one who A would turn to for help or support, who A'd come to if A was happy or sad. He would be A's closest friend and A would love him more than any other and A would _trust_ him unconditionally.

And that was what he did. 

It wasn't hard, when A was old enough, to have A name him heir to the throne.

Once B was named heir, he started plotting A's downfall. He couldn't just have A killed because not only would that make him look extremely suspicious, but people would also contest his right to the throne. He needed to bring A down but make it seem as though he had nothing to do with it, or at the very least make it seem as though he couldn't have done anything about it. He needed to make himself popular and A unpopular. He did this by guiding A to make the wrong decisions. Just little things at first - having him raise the taxes just a _little_ more than he needed to or firing a few staff members for trivial offences that certainly weren't worth being fired for - but it got worse as it went on and on until eventually A seemed almost tyrannical - a brutal suppressor, a hated dictator. While this was happening, B, in public, was ashamed, upset, outraged at A's behaviour, all the while, in private, supporting him and telling him that _you're doing the right thing, even if it doesn't seem like it. I'm sorry about having to seem as though I think you're doing something bad - you're not, really. Do you understand?_

_..._

_Yes, and I love you too._

When it eventually got bad enough, when A was hated enough and B was loved enough, B had the king executed.

*

From the very beginning A didn't realise that any of this was happening. To other people he seemed like a tough, firm, possibly even cruel man, but when he was alone with B he turned into a child. That, essentially, was what he was - a child who loved B far too much and had been manipulated since he was less than a year old. He really did trust B unconditionally and believed that B was right about everything and that although B spoke against him in public, B loved him really and knew what he was doing. Even up until a week before his execution he trusted B, even though B had been the one who suggested having him executed. He believed that B would get him out of it and that everything would be alright again.

When B came to him in his prison cell and told him the truth, A didn't know what to feel.

So he felt nothing at all.

♕♚♕


End file.
